Initially designed to attract new students to the joys of computing, the Raspberry Pi lineup made Single-Board Computers available to thousands of tinkers – including yours truly. My first contact with the Raspberry Pi Zero taught me a lot about Linux, and it’s low-key the reason I got into distro-hopping. Heck, I still use Raspberry Pi SBCs in my home lab, despite owning significantly powerful hardware.
That said, the Raspberry Pi lineup is slowly losing its DIY throne. Not to other SBC families, mind you (even though some Arm SBCs outperform the RPi series by a huge margin). Inexpensive mini PCs are the biggest threat to Raspberry Pi boards, and I’d go so far as to say that I’d actually recommend them over the uber-popular SBC lineup.
Affordable pricing was the standout feature of older Raspberry Pis
The mainline RPi boards are anything but cheap
Compared to the expensive PCs of yore, the older Raspberry Pi systems offered a cheap solution to get into tinkering. The original Raspberry Pi had a launch price of $35, which is already cheap for a development board. Then the company released the Model A SBC the following year, bringing the system’s price tag down to $25.
This trend continued for the next couple of years, and despite supply issues causing minor spikes in the Raspberry Pi series’ overall costs, these boards remained the most cost-effective solution for DIY lovers. Unfortunately, the prices of the mainline Raspberry Pi systems steadily climbed, with the cheapest RPi 5 model costing $60. Sure, it packed 4GB of memory for that price, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation ended up releasing a $50 variant with 2GB RAM the following year.
However, the mainline boards were no longer as inexpensive as they once were. In their stead, the Raspberry Pi Zero series began catering to the demand for budget-friendly SBCs, while the numbered entries started targeting the power users. That wouldn’t have been a big deal if the mainline systems didn’t feature outdated components…
And they aren’t all that powerful, either
When the Raspberry Pi 5 launched in 2023, I was really excited to tinker with the board. But after creating dozens of projects with the SBC, it’s hard to ignore its shortcomings. By the time the SBC was released to the public, the ARM Cortex-A76 processor powering the system was already five years old!
Credit where it’s due, the new PCIe slot was a neat addition to the Raspberry Pi series, though its limited PCIe 2.0 x1 connectivity made it so that the SBC would throttle most devices – barring certain first-party AI kits, sensors, and other accessories. Then there’s the wild decision to remove hardware transcoding from the SBC, alongside the removal of the AUX port.
Truth be told, I still adore the Raspberry Pi 5. However, I can’t really recommend buying the SBC family anymore, as x86 mini PCs tend to surpass it on several fronts while costing a little more than the RPi 5’s higher-end models.
Mini PCs have gotten a lot more affordable lately
Sub-$150 x86 systems have more horsepower than RPi SBCs
Although the Arm Cortex-A76 can pull its own weight when it comes to tinkering with DIY ideas, you’re bound to encounter some projects where the Arm processor falls short on the performance front. Meanwhile, x86 mini PCs – especially those powered by Intel’s N97 and N100 CPUs – are better than the Raspberry Pi 5’s processor on the performance front.
And you don’t have to throw away a lot of money for these systems either. N100 mini PCs, for example, are available for as low as $120. On paper, that may seem more expensive than anything but the 16GB variant of the Raspberry Pi 5. But once you throw in the money required for the active cooler (and trust me, you’ll need it if you don’t want your Raspberry Pi to turn into an inferno mid-operation), microSD cards, and display cables, the mini PC becomes only $10-20 more expensive than the RPi. Assuming you can get a Raspberry Pi at non-scalper prices, of course!
Heck, you can even find older SFF systems with Intel i3/i5 processors for well under $150. An old OptiPlex, ThinkCenter, or EliteDesk system may be too outdated for modern games, but these SFF PCs are significantly more powerful than the Arm-based Raspberry Pi systems.
They have a huge collection of operating systems
Besides pricing, the superior OS compatibility was the prime reason the Raspberry Pi series grew immensely popular in the tinkering crowd. While other SBC families featured half-baked support for most distros, the Raspberry Pi family was not only compatible with the popular Linux flavors, but also packed its own operating system, one that includes all the tools you’d need to get started on your tinkering journey.
But unlike Arm systems, where you may have to search for ports, pretty much every major operating system is compatible with x86 hardware. Some, like NixOS, OpenMediaVault, and RetroPie, aren’t natively available on the Raspberry Pi 5 and need some extra tweaks to work on the SBC. Others, like Qubes OS, TrueNAS, and Unraid, don’t even work on Arm devices. Besides working perfectly fine with every distro I’ve mentioned so far, x86 devices pair well with Windows 11 and Proxmox – two operating systems that, despite requiring several workarounds on the Raspberry Pi, barely function on the SBC. And don’t even get me started on the package compatibility issues on non-x86 systems…
Alongside fewer package compatibility issues
The Raspberry Pi family is definitely better endowed on the software compatibility front than their Arm-based rivals, but it’s not that uncommon to run into packages that don’t work on the SBC lineup. If you’re as much of a containerization fanatic as I am, you’ll encounter plenty of images that aren’t compatible with the Arm architecture.
Throw in the compatibility issues you’ll encounter when deploying ZoneMinder, Pterodactyl Panel, and other (relatively) obscure services on the Raspberry Pi systems, and it’s easy to see why cheap mini PCs are better for tinkerers.
Budget-friendly x86 systems might dethrone the Raspberry Pi series
Nevertheless, there are a couple of scenarios where you might want to stick with a Raspberry Pi. If your setup explicitly requires tiny, low-power SBCs that can be powered over a PoE connection, a Raspberry Pi system will work pretty well. Likewise, for GPIO-heavy projects that can’t be replicated with USB-based sensors, you’ll have much better luck with Raspberry Pi SBCs than mini PCs. For tinkerers on a tight budget, a Raspberry Pi Zero (preferably 2W) is easily the best device in the $15-20 price range. But for practically every other case, I can’t suggest picking up a Raspberry Pi when you can find more cost-effective mini PCs on the market.